War on Gaza: Why Palestinian teenagers are driven to battle
When it comes to the world’s normalisation and acceptance of Palestinians being killed by Israeli forces, it should be of no surprise that the deaths of two Palestinian teenagers in the occupied West Bank in separate incidents last week barely registered.
What was extraordinary about these 18-year-olds was their commitment to fighting Israeli occupation, despite their young age.
Wael Mishah and Tariq Daoud were both released during the prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas last November. During the swap deal, 240 Palestinian women and children were freed in exchange for 81 Israelis and 24 foreigners held in the Gaza Strip.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners Society, Israel has since rearrested 24 of those it released.
As well-wishers gathered that November night in Beitunia, west of Ramallah, to receive the dozens of Palestinian children released from Israeli jails, Mishah was hoisted on shoulders to celebrate his freedom. He chanted in support of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, which the UK and other countries have proscribed as a terrorist group.
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“May God protect the resistance, have mercy on the martyrs, and heal our wounded,” Mishah said in a hoarse voice, still wearing a grey prison uniform.
Mishah, who is from the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, told the media of the deplorable conditions faced by Palestinian children imprisoned by Israel, ranging from verbal assaults to severe physical beatings, to forbidding them from showering.
“Our joy is indescribable, but incomplete because children are still in prison,” he said.
Corruption and complicity
On 15 August, a month after his 18th birthday, Mishah was killed by an Israeli drone at dawn as he fought against an Israeli raid on the city of Nablus.
His mother said that her son was heavily affected by the genocide taking place in the Gaza Strip. “He went from being a prisoner to being wanted, to confronting [the occupation], then a martyr.”
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That cycle is by no means an aberration for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Daily Israeli raids into villages, towns and refugee camps have led to more than 600 Palestinians being killed since 7 October when the war broke out.
Youths are facing an ever-shrinking space for political expression and self-determination, amid rampant settler colonisation. Frustrated by the corrupt and complicit Palestinian Authority, which cracks down on dissidents and engages in security collaboration with Israel, they are left with few options.
Just days before Mishah’s killing, Daoud was gunned down by Israeli forces near the occupied West Bank town of Azzun on Monday.
Today, the nearly year-long genocide in Gaza represents a rupture in the status quo
According to Al Jazeera and local Palestinian sources, Daoud was wanted for carrying out several shooting attacks involving Israeli settlements and Israeli vehicles in the northern occupied West Bank. His body is being withheld by Israel, a common state practice that denies Palestinian families the opportunity to fully grieve.
His family home had reportedly been raided at least 40 times to pressure him into surrendering, while his parents were arrested 25 times, according to his older brother. Several other family members have also been repeatedly arrested.
The Qassam Brigades issued statements of condolence for both teens, hailing their roles in the organisation. A third prisoner released in the November swap, 18-year-old Jibril Jibril, has reportedly gone into hiding and remains wanted in connection to attacks on Israeli forces. His family has also reportedly been targeted, with Israeli soldiers repeatedly arresting and interrogating his father.
Political travesties
The involvement of these three teenagers in fighting against Israel’s occupation can only be understood in the context of the political travesties that have beset them since their births in 2006.
That year witnessed the Palestinian legislative elections, with Hamas participating for the first time. Hamas won by a landslide, but the Bush administration in the US did not take kindly to this exercise of Palestinian democratic rights and sought to overthrow Hamas by engineering a coup led by Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahlan.
The coup was thwarted by Hamas, and 2007 witnessed Palestinian civil infighting and the official severance of the West Bank and Gaza Strip territories.
Over the next 15 years, the Israeli military waged several wars on Gaza, killing thousands of people. Meanwhile, the occupied West Bank saw increasing settlement construction and displacement of Palestinians from their lands. Emboldened settlers launched attacks on Palestinians, amid the inaction of a belligerent and increasingly autocratic government led by President Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies.
Today, the nearly year-long genocide in Gaza represents a rupture in the status quo. The killing of tens of thousands of civilians, alongside the territory’s utter devastation, has revealed Israel’s true intentions: total obliteration of the Palestinian people, whom it views as a demographic and existential threat.
These are the factors driving teenagers like Mishah, Daoud and Jibril towards a life of battle. Before he died, Daoud expressed hope that Palestinians were on “the path to freedom and liberation from the occupation”.
As poet Refaat Alareer, who was killed by Israel last December, wrote in a 2022 essay, it seems that nothing Palestinians or their supporters do will ever satisfy Israel: “We have no choice but to recover, stand up again, and continue the struggle.”
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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